


A Long, Hard Road

by melfice



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape/Non-con References, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2012-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-30 17:30:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melfice/pseuds/melfice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bite marks on Glenn's shoulder are not from a walker.  The instability in Daryl's life is not from the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Long, Hard Road

**Author's Note:**

> Liberties have been taken with Daryl's childhood. This story contains references and vague implications of rape, past and present, and paints a canonical character (Merle Dixon) in a negative light - or at least a worse one than he gets in the show.
> 
> The timeline in this story jumps around randomly and the current time is displayed { like this }.

* * *

_{ twenty years ago: the beginning }_

 

The air is crisp and fresh and clean. It blows through the fields, through the rows of wheat nearing harvest, and it blows through eight year old Daryl's hair while he sits in the tall grass and watches his mother pin their laundry to the line. His father is in town with Merle, getting parts to fix the tractor, because his father is furious at the world and the only way he knows how to calm his nerves is by working on the dilapidated farm equipment littering their acres.

 

Daryl stays behind because his father tells him to – because his father tells him he doesn't like their mother being home alone, on their farm two hours outside of town. Daryl doesn't question it, just like he doesn't question anything his father tells him, even if he privately thinks it unfair.

 

“Your father worries,” his mother tells him when he asks, when she glances out across the field at the gravel road that is quiet and empty. “Something bad happened a long time ago, before you were born, and he doesn't want it to happen again.”

 

Daryl knows. He knows because Merle told him years ago, one night when they were camping in the backyard, trying to hunt raccoons with his BB gun. He knows that someone came to their farm who shouldn't, someone who came when their father was in town, and that his mother was alone. Merle hadn't said much – had just said something bad had happened and had left it at that – but there had been something about the way he'd said it, about the way he'd glared off into the distance, that had made Daryl think that maybe Merle had seen something.

 

It's after that night that Merle tells him you can't trust folks who aren't white. That they're conniving and evil and whatever else he's heard on his trips into town with their father.

 

When he tells his mother this she pauses where she's pinning up one of his father's work shirts and looks at him. She sets the clothespins and the shirt down and crouches next to him, smiles at him, tired and kind, and cups one of his cheeks in her small hand.

 

“Folks can't help the way they're born, Daryl,” she tells him. “They can't help being born white or black or yellow. They can't help the way they're raised or taught – they can only help the people they become.”

 

“What if they're bad people?” he asks, because he thinks she's telling him that his father is wrong and he doesn't know what to say to that, doesn't know how to process that.

 

“Folks ain't born bad, Daryl,” she tells him, then kisses him on the head and stands back up. “You gonna stop eating strawberries 'cause one's a little sour?”

* * *

 

_{ three days after they meet: when things start falling apart }_

 

Glenn feels dizzy, feels like the world is moving in circles around him, and his mind is heavy and clouded. The thin grasp he has on his situation, on his surroundings, feels tenuous and brittle; it feels like something that is slipping out of his fingers. He regrets everything and anything, a thousand thoughts running through his head faster than he can process them, and he clings to denial first and foremost.

 

The wall he's shoved against is cool, could be concrete or metal, and it is cold against the side of his cheek, against the palms pressed against it. He thinks maybe he is trying to sink into the wall, to use his hands to pull him into it, but it doesn't work and there's really nowhere for him to go. He curls his fingers against the wall, against the coolness there, tilts his head until he can feel that chill against the fevered skin on his forehead and he feels trapped.

 

There's a leg shoved between his own, one large palm curled around his shoulder – and that grip keeps him in place. The other hand is at his side, at his waist, underneath the hem of his shirt. The fabric bunches around the wrist, clenches in fingers as it's pushed and pulled up his abdomen, and the chill of the wall against his bare stomach sends shivers down his spine he can't control; it feels like there is a lot he can't control.

 

There are no lights in the room, no electricity still running to the abandoned storefront, but it the brightness feels incriminating regardless. The sunlight through the dirty windows is only blurs of color in eyes that feel full of water and smoke, as though he's viewing them through a smudged lens. He stares at the cracked, dark florescent bulb in the center of the ceiling and tries not to feel the curve of a smirk pressed against the exposed portion of his neck.

 

It's difficult to breathe, the air in the room heavy, and he gasps into it when the grip on his shoulder tightens violently and teeth sink into the soft skin at the base of his collarbone. He clenches his own teeth until his jaw aches, until his entire mouth aches, because he doesn't want to alert the walkers shuffling around outside in the alley he's sure is behind that wall.

 

His limbs and bones feel strangely stiff and it takes longer than it should for him to work out how to move them. Even when he presses away from the wall – attempts to press away – he doesn't go anywhere. A hand pushes against the back of his head, hard, until he's staring at the peeling paint and biting his lip so hard he can taste blood. There are strong hands on him, strong legs blocking him.

 

There's a mouth against his neck that doesn't belong.

* * *

 

 

_{ four days after Atlanta is lost: the day they meet }_

 

The boy is stuck – his foot is wedged between a wall in a dumpster, likely from trying to escape out from behind it – and he has the length of an aluminum bat jammed against the open, biting mouth of something that was once a woman. Her face is melted, jaw disconnected and eyes sunk, teeth ringing out as they gnash against the hollow metal, her jagged fingernails clawing out towards the kid's terrified face. He's laying on his back on the ground, amidst shattered glass and grime, both hands gripping the bat tight, his leg tugging uselessly against the weight of the steel dumpster.

 

The walker's jaw is working – pulling her mouth up and over – and she's going to get free of the bat, is going to sink her teeth into that kid's face in a handful of seconds-

 

Daryl sinks a carbon bolt through the back of her head from ten feet away and he's close enough to hear the sound of it sink through bone and skin; he's close enough that he sees the kid recoil, eyes widening a fraction, at the point that emerges and sticks out of the walker's forehead. The boy pushes her back using the bat, pushes until she rolls over onto the ground, and then, without the threat of immediate ingestion, squirms and maneuvers until he pulls his foot free of the dumpster.

 

He picks the bat back up – which is just good survival instincts, because you shouldn't let your guard down just because a man saved you from one danger – but he doesn't do anything more than watch Daryl kick the woman's body over, doesn't do anything more than watch him extract his crossbow bolt from her skull and wipe the gore onto his pants leg.

 

“Thanks,” the kid says, a little breathless, and still a little on edge.

 

There's footsteps behind Daryl, heavy and familiar, and then he hears Merle scoff when he gets a few feet away.

 

“God damn it, Daryl,” he spits, a little annoyed at having to run to catch up and a little annoyed at life in general, and there's nothing to blame there. “You wastin' time, hanging around here, to save some chink?”

 

The kid hears him, has to hear him, but he stares blankly at them; his hackles don't rise, he doesn't stiffen.

 

“He's _alive_ ,” Daryl replies, but there's no real fire behind it, because he doesn't fight with Merle any more. “Seems better than havin' one more dead.”

 

Merle grunts, like he doesn't agree, but the kid looks to Daryl and says, “There's others. We have a camp.”

 

* * *

 

 

_{ six days from the group run to Atlanta: everything comes undone }_

 

The rain in Georgia, in the middle of summer, does nothing to cure the miserable humidity that lingers over it like a wet net. It makes everything a muddy, warm mess, and, despite that, Glenn chokes on a wave of chills that sweep through his lungs when he ends up knocked into the grass face first. It is not cold, but there are goosebumps along his arms, something hard and frozen lodged in his chest, and the breath is forced out of him the moment his face comes in contact with soft mud and grass.

 

There is a knee digging into his back, into his spine, one strong hand holding both of his over his head, and he thinks, for a moment, about screaming. He thinks about alerting the attention of every living – and non-living – thing in the vicinity, thinks about screaming until his throat is burned raw, and he wants to but he can't fucking _breathe_.

 

His whole body aches – from the fall, from the pressure on his back, from bruises that haven't even had time to heal from the last time – and he thinks about the pocket knife in his waistband, feels the pressure of it against his skin, and he thinks about it until his whole body is itching for it.

 

His shirt is in a crumpled, dirty pile on the ground near the lake, where he had taken it off to wash it, and he feels every piece of clay, every grain of sand, every blade of grass against his bare skin as though it were digging into him violently.

 

It feels like an eternity has passed since he was shoved to the ground, since his mind began to think of a million different things he should be doing, but nothing happens. Daryl's hands are still on him, body still above him, but he seems frozen in place, nerves tense, and for a long time there's only the sound of Glenn's own breathing over the sound of rain hitting water.

 

He realizes, almost belatedly, that Daryl's other hand is pressed near the bite mark on his back, on his shoulder – there's more than one, there's more than two – and Glenn finds himself stupidly, blindly hoping to be struck by lightening.

 

“What the hell,” Daryl finally says, voice hoarse, but he doesn't immediately move.

 

It's almost instantly obvious what the man had been thinking – that he had seen the bite from a distance, the angry red of it, and had thought the worse. The actions are rash and violent and so utterly Daryl; of course he thinks Glenn has been attacked by a walker, of course he would see a wound and immediately think the worst, but it's painfully obvious up close that it's nothing like a bite from a geek. The finger shaped bruises lining his ribcage, disappearing down his hips, are a dead giveaway regardless.

 

Glenn intakes a breath, shaky but suddenly obscenely relieved, and digs his fingers into the mud and grass and grits out, “Daryl,  _get the fuck off of me_ .”

 

The movement then is instant, like a snap, and Daryl recoils away from him like he's been shot. He moves away quick enough that the loss of pressure feels like a wave over Glenn, like all the air in his lungs returning.

 

Glenn pushes himself up to his knees and turns around, sits down almost immediately, stares at the stunned face of someone he'd been thinking of stabbing moments before. For a moment he thinks he's going to get some disgusted jab at being into some weird shit, at his iffy choice in “bed partners”, but he can tell by the realization on Daryl's face that it won't play out like that.

 

Daryl is staring at him like he's seen a ghost. His hands are curled into fists at his sides, muscles in his arms twitching like they're not in his control, and he looks incredulous, looks like he's staring at something he refuses to see.

 

“Merle said a walker bit you,” he manages to spit out, through his teeth.

 

Glenn chokes out a bitter, hollow laugh, and watches the way it makes all the color in Daryl's face drain to white.

 

* * *

 

 

_{ five days until the supply run: the questions are there }_

 

They don't talk about it, not at first. Daryl grabs his things and leaves the lake, because he can't deal with it – he  _can't_ . Standing there he had felt eight years old again, watching his mother stare at the quiet, empty road like she had remembered she saw something there once. He remembers the vacant look in her eyes, how it had looked when she had been remembering something awful, and the distance there that had been suffocating. He remembers that look, that feeling, of trying to keep something awful at arm's length. 

 

He doesn't know this kid, doesn't give two shits about him, but that doesn't stop the disgust and denial from settling thickly at the bottom of his stomach. He thinks about his brother, whom he trusts, whom he has always stood by. He thinks about his brother, who had been so angry at what had happened to their mother, and he can't fit the pieces together.

 

The fires are nearly burned out at camp when Daryl stops waiting for Merle to return from hunting and picks his way through camp with a scowl on his face, his stomach in knots.

 

The kid is sitting in his tent, sifting through a tiny first aid kit that's worn and stained, something he might've owned or found, and the flap to his tent is open enough. He looks up when Daryl blocks the entrance and he frowns, just a little. There's tension in his frame that makes Daryl feel nauseous, makes him contemplate what he's even fucking doing there, but he doesn't run away.

 

“I wanna know what happened,” he says, demands, and he feels angry without meaning to. He's angry at this kid, for all the doubts he's placed in his head, for implying shit about the only real family Daryl has left-

 

And Merle is not a saint, he's not. He's fucked up six ways to Sunday but he's all Daryl has, especially with the world gone to shit, and he can't stand there while someone drags his name through the mud. He can't stand there while someone who doesn't even _know_ their past, who doesn't know what happened to them-

 

The kid should tell him that it's none of his business, that he has no right to demand answers from him, but he doesn't. Instead he stares at him, meets his gaze, and says, “No, you don't.”

 

Daryl almost goes further into the tent – almost – but he stops himself just in time to make the motion more a twitch than anything. The boy's eyes are on him the entire time, back ramrod straight like he's waiting to bolt, and Daryl remembers holding him in the grass by the lake and feels like he might vomit, feels like maybe he should say something, should apologize, because he hadn't fucking _known_ -

 

He straightens, anger still present enough to make the tips of his fingers tingle, and he refuses to feel like he's being scrutinized by a boy half his size, a boy he doesn't care about or even really know – the same one he pried out of a walker's hands weeks prior, the same one who stood up for him when he and that shit-stain Shane got into it over all those god damned rules.

 

“When we were kids, our ma- “ Daryl stops, because the words won't come, because they've been underneath his tongue for twenty years and he can't force them out. Everything suddenly tastes bitter and he shakes his head, like shaking away a bad memory. “After what we went through back then, Merle would never- he'd _never_ -”

 

Glenn's expression tightens, in a way that makes Daryl's mouth snap shut.

  
“Your brother's teeth marks are in my shoulder,” the kid says, and his hands are shaking just slightly, like he's so angry he can't control them. “How the fuck else do you think they got there?”

* * *

 

 

_{ two days until Atlanta: but everything remains unanswered }_

 

When Merle comes back two days later, without so much as a squirrel in tow, he almost immediately offers to go on the supply trip with the others. It's not too difficult for Daryl to ignore the way the kid's face pales at that, the way the color drains from his skin, but it settles something thick like guilt in the bottom of his stomach.

 

Daryl pokes at the dying fire and tries to think how you ask your own kin if they raped a kid in the middle of an abandoned 7-11.

* * *

 

 

_{ the morning of the Atlanta trip: with no excuses left }_

 

The hunting knife is sharp, reflective in the hot Georgia sun even in its holster, and it feels strange and foreign in Glenn's palm. The strap is small, likely meant to be attached to an ankle, likely underneath his pants, and it's dirty and slightly worn but well taken care of under the circumstances.

 

“That butter knife you got is shit,” Daryl tells him, but he's not looking him in the eye. He's staring off over his shoulder, at the others loading up one of the vehicles with baseball bats and supplies for a day run.

 

Glenn stares at him for a moment longer, stares at the knife, and tries not to feel anything. He thinks about asking Daryl to go with them, but they've already got way too many people tagging along and he knows Shane has asked Daryl to go hunting in their absence.

 

The knife feels a little like an apology, a little like understanding. He wants to ask if Daryl believes him.

 

“Did you talk to your brother?” he asks instead, and he can tell by the way Daryl's jaw locks up that he hasn't.

 

Because, his mind supplies, he doesn't want to know.

* * *

 

 

_{ back to Atlanta: without conviction, without understanding }_

 

It starts with denial, with wanting nothing to do with the entire ordeal, and quickly escalates into the gnawing need for answers. He wants to know and doesn't want to know and it claws at him the entire time they spend driving back to Atlanta to see if his brother is still chained to a roof.

 

It starts with a burning desire to prove to himself that Glenn is mistaken, that he's a liar, _anything_ , and it changes slowly – quickly – into a need to ask his brother _why_. Because the kid sits across from him in the back of the van, tense, a fading bruise on the back of his neck that no one else seems to have any concerns or questions about; it's not new, isn't recent, but it's a reminder.

 

The past doesn't fade and wither in the face of the future. It leaves a scar, a burn – and that burn is slow and strong and it starts in his lungs and it spreads. It curls in around him, fierce and quiet, and it curls outwards and upwards and blooms into tension and hesitance and a brittle resolve. The slide of it is hot enough to be cold, to be a chill he can't shake off, and it lingers in his bones as discomfort and nerves that never leave.

 

The feeling makes him irritable, makes him wary and paranoid, and it makes him lash out in ways that he can't control. The past leaves marks on him that he swears he can feel, that he can still see, that hurt regardless of the time elapsed, and they burn like a fire he can't put out.

 

It's difficult to let anyone close, to let anyone inside the walls he's been slowly building up around a shaky temperament, but it's not impossible.

 

It starts with this kid he doesn't care about, doesn't even _know_ , and gets taken out of his control without his consent or his notice until it's far too late.

* * *

 

 

_{ that day: where there is truth in actions }_

 

A dozen supply runs, a dozen trips to Atlanta, and nothing goes wrong until people start going with him. Glenn doesn't know how to account for the safety of others, doesn't know how to keep an eye on them, can barely keep an eye on himself. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, can turn to the worst, and that's exactly what happens when he bolts out of that alleyway with Daryl covering him.

 

Because the men who grab him aren't walkers, are as alive as they can be under the circumstances. Because these days Glenn is starting to realize the walkers are a danger, but that humans are far more terrifying. They're survivors in a world without law, without reason, and they're fighting tooth and nail against each other for what is left.

 

He fights against them, all twice his size, and he kicks and lashes out and it's all futile. He screams anyway, screams for help, screams for _Daryl_ \- who tries to climb a chain link fence with walkers attached to it to get to him-

 

When he's shoved into the car, he goes for the knife, the one strapped to his ankle, and doesn't get a chance to use it before everything goes black.

* * *

 

 

 _{ thirteen years ago: when nothing had been better_ _}_

 

County smells like bleach and steel and Daryl's footsteps echo loudly when he steps through, backpack heavy against his shoulder, ignoring the looks he gets from the suits who don't know anything about him or his family or his life. It takes a lot of arguing, a lot of forged documents and papers to get Daryl into the county jail for visitation – he's only fifteen, not really old enough to be visiting unsupervised – but if there's anything Merle has taught him it's how to get by.

 

The visitation room is small and there's only one other person there, some young woman crying into the receiver, and Daryl ignores her because he doesn't care. The metal stool is uncomfortable, the phone cold, but Merle's toothy grin is familiar on the other side of the glass.

 

“Can't believe you got in,” Merle says, and it sounds like pride in his voice.

 

Daryl shifts his backpack onto the floor, doesn't think of the homework he still has to do. “Pa sent me. Says to tell you he ain't givin' you more money. Says you're on your own.”

 

Merle shrugs, like he expected as much, and at twenty he looks far older than he is. He looks weathered, looks like he's learned nothing from detention.

 

“That boy ain't ever gonna walk again,” Daryl says, because it's all he can think about these nights, all he thinks about when he lays in bed, when he goes to school and everyone gives him a wide berth.

 

“'Scuse me?” Merle asks, expression changing immediately, as he leans forward, scowl on his face. “I did that for you, Daryl. I'm in here 'cause of you, so you better show me some respect.”

 

Daryl's mouth snaps shut.

 

Merle leans back again, not so close to the glass now, but he's still pissed. “Why else'd you tell me about that little wetback beating your punk ass? You sure as fuck ain't gonna fight your own battles.”

 

“I didn't want you breaking his damned kneecaps with a crowbar,” Daryl hisses into the receiver.

 

“You best step up then, little man.”

* * *

 

 

_{ present day: in the midst of a revelation }_

 

 

He's spent so long looking out for his own skin, spent so long not giving two shits for anyone else, that it's second nature to suggest they leave Glenn and save themselves. He's spent a life time perfecting self-survival, spent a lifetime listening to Merle preach about looking out for yourself and not risking anything for someone else's sorry hide, and it comes to him as naturally as breathing. It's easy to form the words, easy to pretend he feels the same, but the guilt in his stomach festers and grows until he feels sick with it.

 

 _'Convince me_ ,' he wants to demand of Rick, who is ten times the man he is, who can't possibly even be real with all his ideals and his sense of righteousness.  _'Tell me I should care about someone else_ .' 

 

He doesn't have to ask; Rick doesn't tell him what to feel, doesn't tell him what to do, but the answer is there regardless. He only half realizes it's his own decision when they're in the middle of an auto garage, with a dozen rifle barrels trained on them, and he knows he won't leave without that stupid kid with them. 

 

Glenn is alive, is completely unharmed. 

 

There's an itching in Daryl's hands, a pull in his chest, that feels tense and tight and he can't control it. He keeps his shotgun propped over one shoulder while he pulls Glenn around to face him with his free hand, grip loose on his arm. The Korean looks whole, looks to be in one piece, and he's calm and staring at Daryl like he doesn't full comprehend what's going on. Daryl ignores him for a long moment, just long enough to sate the prickling desire under his skin to check the kid over, to make sure he's fine – because he doesn't give a fuck about Rick Grimes and his peace treaties, he will fucking blow the heads off of everyone in the god damned  _building_ if they've laid a hand on this kid-

 

“Hey,” Glenn says, and it's his hand on Daryl's elbow, the calm in his expression that doesn't match the feral look in Daryl's own eyes, that puts him at ease. “It's cool. I'm fine.”

 

There's a cut on his forehead that he might have gotten by bumping his head when he was dragged into the car, but he seems fine. He looks strange, smaller, in just the black t-shirt, is missing his over-shirt somewhere, but he's the calmest Daryl's seen him in the last fucking week.

 

“Since when do you care?” T-Dog asks him, and Daryl ignores him because he still feels on edge, feels like if he listens to anyone's smart ass comments he'll probably end up slamming the butt of his gun into their face.

 

He glances Glenn over once more, to assure himself of something, and then let's go of him as though he's been burned. Glenn doesn't seem to take it personally, just watches him patiently, and Daryl runs a hand through his hair and nods stiffly, like maybe he's willing to believe everything is fine.

* * *

 

 

_{ that night: in the wake of tragedy }_

 

 

Glenn sits pressed side to side with Daryl, next to the cold, dead remains of the fire, and stares blankly at the bodies littering the camp. His rifle is propped against his shoulder, the length of the barrel cool against the skin of his arm. He feels numb, can scarcely feel the warmth emanating from the man beside him, but what he can feel is grounding and, for a very brief moment, he thinks of Daryl among the bodies and feels absurdly, stupidly alone.

 

Daryl plugs another set of shells into his shotgun and doesn't move away. He counts his ammunition and he checks his gun a dozen times over and, when Glenn's free hand curves against the hem of his shirt, he pretends not to notice.

 

They listen to Andrea's sobs the rest of the night and no one sleeps, no one moves.

 

* * *

 

_{ four nights ago in Atlanta: wherein none will see what lies in front of them }_

 

“You okay, Glenn?” Andrea asks, while the two of them pick through what is left of a twenty four hour pharmacy. There are mostly overturned shelves and empty bottles, destroyed displays and the smell of rotting flesh, but there are no walkers and there are two bottles of aspirin in Glenn's bag that are worth the trip alone.

 

He nudges his foot through a pile of empty bottles, listening for the tell-tale sound of pills rolling around in hard plastic, and avoids thinking too hard about the question. He knows he's been a little quiet lately, a lot on his mind, it doesn't have to mean she knows anything. It's only her being concerned, looking out for everyone, and it doesn't have to mean anything.

 

“Fine, why?” he asks, looking up from the empty bottles only when he can't put it off any longer without it seeming intentional, without it seeming like he's pointedly not looking at her.

 

“Nothing, it's just,” she pauses, as though approaching a delicate subject, and she runs a hand through her hair, “it's just that, you – I mean, that Daryl Dixon character. You'd say something if he was giving you problems, right?”

 

Glenn stares at her openly for a moment, taken aback. “What?”

 

“It's just that I saw him bothering you in your tent, and I know he was giving you a hard time yesterday before we left,” she waves her hand in a way that probably means something to her, but that makes no sense to Glenn whatsoever. “I just want to make sure you're okay, Glenn.”

 

“Hey!”

 

They both cringe at the volume of the voice, obscenely loud in a place they're trying to be quiet, and Glenn doesn't have to turn to know Merle is standing in the doorway to the pharmacy. The knife strapped to his ankle, the one that had belonged to Daryl, feels heavy and comforting in a way that is foreign.

 

“You ladies done in here? Let's get going already.”

 

Andrea rolls her eyes and pats Glenn on the shoulder, picking her way through the debris towards the exit.

 

Glenn follows her quietly, ignoring the man's eyes on him the entire time.

* * *

 

 

_{ present day: on a road to nowhere }_

 

The cab of the pickup is filthy in a way it likely was long before the world went to shit. It smells like engine oil and WD-40, the floor littered with trash and empty cigarette cartons and papers that could be from anything. There's a three quarters empty chewing tobacco can half hidden underneath what might have once been a camouflage tarp but is now a floor mat.

 

Glenn enjoys the feel of the warm air coming in through the windows, the feeling of it in his hair, the sound of it louder than the engine. The seat is comfortable enough that he understands why Daryl sleeps there, is more comfortable than the worn thin seats in the RV.

 

He takes a minute to feel guiltily grateful to not be in the RV, with Andrea's dead eyes staring at the wall as though she no longer sees it, with Carol's muffled tears over a dead husband who doesn't deserve it.

 

“You all right?” Daryl asks, and gestures at Glenn with a nod when he looks at him.

 

Glenn feels like he's heard that question a hundred times in the last week, but it sounds different coming from him. It sounds like an invitation, sounds a little like understanding, and it doesn't sound as suffocating as he imagined it would; Daryl doesn't coddle him, doesn't know how.

 

He shrugs and huffs out a humorless laugh. “As good as I can be, I guess.”

 

* * *

 

 

_{ in the CDC: with the feeling of safety boiling underneath }_

 

Glenn's face is flushed from too much wine and he smells clean, smells like soap and linens, and he is sitting pressed against Daryl's right side when he says, voice loud in the quiet of the tiny room, “I'm sorry about your mom.”

 

Daryl's body tenses, stiffens, without his control. He glances sharply down at the boy next to him, but whatever he expects to find in the kid's face isn't there; there's nothing but sincerity there, nothing but an open honesty that he hasn't seen in a long damned time.

 

There are nights he still remembers the sound of his mother's voice, the feel of her hand against his face. There are nights he forgets she's been dead fifteen years now and there are nights he forgets about the drunken spiral it led his father down and the way that his life had been irreparably shaken by it.

 

He's thought for the last fifteen years that she was the only person he truly trusted, the only person he truly cared about, and he misses her in a way that feels like a gaping hole in his chest that won't heal.

 

He takes a quick drink from the whiskey bottle in his left hand and swallows it slowly, trying to loosen his tongue and feeling betrayed when nothing is made easier. He can't apologize, not really, so all that he manages is a stilted, “Me too.”

* * *

 

 

_{ that night: when nothing makes sense }_

 

Daryl's head is pounding when he wakes up, the wind-up clock on the wall is at three am in a world where time has really lost all meaning, and his entire body aches from the exhaustion of running non-stop for months on end. The bed feels like the best damned thing he's ever slept on, feels like some sort of distant dream that can't be real.

 

Glenn is a warm weight next to him and Daryl doesn't know why he's there, but he doesn't push him away. He doesn't move when Glenn shifts, when he buries his face into Daryl's side and doesn't wake.

 

It would be easier if he genuinely wasn't interested. It would be easier if he didn't like the kid's company, if he didn't like the rare smiles that he hides under his cap, if he didn't think he cared about him in ways that are too difficult to wrap his own mind around. Everything would be easier if it wasn't the end of the god damned world – if there was still his family's farm and mindless tasks to fill his day – if he didn't think he could use the absence of everything stable as an excuse for the things he cannot force himself to name.

 

He won't say he finds Glenn attractive, even if he stares across campfires at him and watches shadows move across his face. He won't say he cares, even when he takes the time to notice new cuts and bruises that stretch across the kid's arms, even when he notices a change in mood and a change in focus and when he notices every god damned thing. He won't say he has feelings for someone, for Glenn, because he doesn't know how to name something like that. There's a pull in his chest, something uncomfortable and unfamiliar, and he doesn't have a name for it.

 

He lays awake and listens to Glenn's breathing, listens until the sound is drowned by voices and noise in the hallway.

* * *

 

 

_{ timeless days, sleepless nights: all is lost, hope remains }_

 

Daryl is unstable, like a hurricane through the Gulf, and his emotions are unpredictable and they wreak havoc upon him like nothing else. Glenn watches him go through the motions, watches him fight them and try to adapt to them, and he watches them break him down into fury and violence. His hands shake as though from the cold, like something he can't control, and Glenn waits.

 

He waits while Daryl sorts through his thoughts, through the thousand new things that are filtering through his mind, and he doesn't push.

 

They're pulled over on the side of the road, a stopped caravan, in the face of a sudden, torrential downpour that makes it impossible to see. There's rain hitting the hood of the truck, tapping against the glass loud enough to deafen, when Glenn shifts in his seat – he moves to his knees, takes Daryl's face in his hands and kisses him like it's something they do.

 

It's mostly teeth at first, the clash of them predictable at the angle, at the suddenness. It is almost automatic when Daryl relaxes into it, when he opens his mouth and leans into Glenn as much as his position allows him. It's entirely automatic when one of his hands curls around the back of Glenn's neck, something his hand does of its own accord, and it's entirely reflex that makes Glenn tense suddenly against him – makes him flinch back, as though surprised. Daryl uncoils his hand almost instantly, moves it tentatively to his upper arm, and can't breathe until the stiffness in Glenn's limbs bleeds out again.

 

“You shouldn't do this,” Daryl manages to say, even though it feels as though something is caught in his throat, even though he wants nothing more than for Glenn to do this. “You don't know me.”

 

“You don't know me either,” Glenn reminds him, and that isn't what Daryl means, isn't it at all, but maybe he knows that. He leans in again to cut off whatever Daryl's next thought is, finds his lips and digs his fingers into short blonde hair. It doesn't have to mean anything – none of it has to mean anything at all, but it does. Daryl holds onto his arms in a loose grip, just tight enough to keep himself grounded, to keep his hands from shaking, and he feels a little like he's drowning.

 

He pulls away again, feeling out of breath and terrified and alive. He's angry and hopeful, stupidly hopeful, and he says, voice thick, “You ain't got a lick of common sense, you know that? You're stupid – you're so fucking _stupid_ , Glenn.”

 

Glenn laughs, short and surprised, like his nerves are too high in his throat to make the sound any more stable, and he kisses Daryl again to hide his smile.


End file.
